Community unites to help woman who lost 3 family members

LAMOINE, Maine (NEWS CENTER)-- In late October Lori Tilden lost three family members. Her son, Leon, shot and killed her husband Rob and her brother Russell, and then police shot and killed Leon.

To help Lori and her surviving son Ben during this time, residents in and around Lamoine have banded together and created a fundraiser to help the Tilden family.

The gymnasium at the Lamoine Consolidated School is full of people for the craft fair on Saturday morning, but one booth in particular is extremely busy.

Jen Reynolds and Amanda Fennelly have put together a fundraiser by selling raffle tickets and baked goods to help Lori Tilden and her son Ben.

"If we can do something to help them pay their bills and have heat this winter and make them as comfortable as possible, it's the right thing to do," Fennelly said.

After Reynolds and Fennelly teamed up to put on this fundraiser, it started gaining momentum through the power of Facebook.

"I sent almost every message through Facebook to business owners. And I created the event on Facebook and through the power of people sharing, within two hours of me creating a poster, a woman called me from Portland, it reached Portland in two hours," Fennelly said.

Reynolds and Fennelly both said they are overwhelmed by the amount of support the community is showing.

"It just seems like there's more people like, oh can I donate this? Can I donate that? It's amazing, it really is," Reynolds said.

"This community is awesome. We stand behind each other 100 percent and it is so nice to know that you've got people you can count on when you're going through a hard time. It's overwhelming," Fennelly said.

Each purchase adds to the growing support for the fundraiser which Reynolds said has been better than she thought it would be.

"It beats like 100 fold. It's just amazing how much support. I mean it's overwhelming it really is," Reynolds said.